


a warlock and a djinni fall into a rift

by bwyn



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Warlocks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 21:12:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13175304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwyn/pseuds/bwyn
Summary: “You planning on explaining what’s going on here?” Keith returns, thankfully now standing so that he’s blocking some of the sun in Lance’s eyes. “Or were you just going to leave again? Without warning? Without contact?”Lance smiles as though the words aren't a punch to his gut. Really, he should’ve predicted this, but…“Could you at least let me sit up? My head isn’t busting through dimensions, right?”Keith’s lip curls, but he waves a finger tipped purple with ink, and Lance feels the chains slide free from his neck, arms and chest.-----An AU in which new worlds are only a hop, skip, and a jump away for Lance, and a little less so for Keith.





	a warlock and a djinni fall into a rift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coatofflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coatofflowers/gifts).



> so this is a secret santa fic for my darlingest pal finn!!  
> MERRY BELATED CHRAMBUS FINN ILY!!!!

They didn’t know when they drugged him that he was a transdimensional warlock. They didn’t know that his power was tied to his consciousness, and a messed up mind meant chaos. They didn’t know that the first step Lance would take, stumble, and fall into meant that the floor would follow—

—and the walls—

—and the ceiling—

—and the world itself.

Lance staggers out of a downtown Montréal apartment into the Alps. The masked people follow, unsteady on their feet and gripping rock as snow slides out from under them.

“Shit,” spits one. “Grab him!”

Lance finds himself staring into the warped latex of a Freddy Krueger mask. He stumbles backwards as a gloved hand, tucked into a black hoodie sleeve, reaches for him. Suddenly a gust of wind buffets snow up into a plume. The masked people vanish in a whiteout, and Lance whips around on jelly legs. He doesn’t see the cliff.

An instant later he’s surrounded by bells jingling on the caps of knee-high mushrooms. He doesn’t know this place. The mushrooms are spinning, Lance loses his balance, and he’s in shadows.

Specks of light float in the air like plankton. He’s in a forest, but the trees are large and go up forever. The earth is tilting, but Lance struggles to stay upright, his breath coming fast and panicked. He can’t control his power, he feels himself being tugged in different directions, inside and outside. He trips, ending up on his knees.

Light explodes in acidic green where he touches ground. The glow spikes up the roots and trunk of a tree, until all the other trees are bursting into luminescence. Then Lance is staring into a singular milky eye looking down at him, from the face of a deer twelve stories tall.

Terror and nausea roll into one in Lance’s gut, and the green is spinning into a singular point in his sight, and he’s gone.

He falls into a doorway into a house into drywall into brick into air into water into fire into a kaleidoscope of a thousand different places in a thousand different worlds in a thousand different dimensions.

All the while, two words repeat themselves in an increasingly terrified loop: _Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me._

Lance screams and the kaleidoscope shatters into dusty canyon walls.

For a moment he is still, inhaling a hoarse breath. His knees hit rock, his gaze tipping up over a temple set in sandstone until his sight is being devoured by the sun.

Instead of a scream, he gasps out, “Keith.”

The world spins once more, and there’s darkness.

* * *

Lance wakes up uncomfortable. There’s something weighing him down, and his fingertips feel cold. Lance opens his eyes and is immediately assaulted by white heat. With a pained groan, he turns his head away. Something heavy rubs against his neck. Blinking rapidly to erase the dots from his eyes, Lance tries to gain his bearings. Above him, sunlight filters through patches missing from the threadbare yellow fabric that peaks into the tent. Moving his face puts him right in the line of fire of blazing light, forcing Lance to keep his chin awkwardly tucked against whatever it is that’s around his neck. It takes a long moment until he realizes, with a twist of his wrists, that it’s chain—around his neck, around his chest, around his arms.

“Wha—” rasps Lance before he’s interrupted by his own coughing. His mouth is paper dry. He struggles to summon moisture into it before croaking, “Dude! What the hell!”

There’s the sound of flapping fabric and a huff. Lance tries to tuck his chin in to get a look, but the chain is too bulky. A heavy thunk and a clatter, and then there’s a young man looming over Lance with hands planted firmly on his hips. Tousled hair forms a black wreath around his head, dark eyes looking down a narrow nose above a sharp cupid’s bow. It’s a familiar face, from the unimpressed eyes to the trifecta of freckles on his neck, to the canines bared by a curling lip, sharp enough to prick skin.

“Lance,” says the man.

“Keith,” grins Lance, before grimacing. “Can you get these, uh, chains off?”

“No.”

He turns and walks out of view. Lance struggles to follow the flip of midnight hair. “Why the hell not?”

“Your legs are still phasing.”

“My—oh. Right. Um.”

“You planning on explaining what’s going on here?” Keith returns, thankfully now standing so that he’s blocking some of the sun in Lance’s eyes. “Or were you just going to leave again? Without warning? Without contact?”

Lance smiles as though the words aren’t a punch to his gut. Really, he should’ve predicted this, but…

“Could you at least let me sit up? My head isn’t busting through dimensions, right?”

Keith’s lip curls, but he waves a finger tipped purple with ink, and Lance feels the chains slide free from his neck, arms and chest.

“Oh thank the gods,” heaves Lance, propping himself up on weak elbows. It’s a struggle to keep his head, which might as well be made of lead, upright on a neck suddenly too thin to support it.

“You’re welcome,” quips Keith before his face twists in a grimace. Lance feels his gut clench. He doesn’t know whether it’s amusement or discomfort—Keith learned how to voice his snark from Lance.

Choosing to spare both of them the tension of bringing it up, Lance says, “How much power did you have to use on these damn things?”

He looks towards his feet for the first time and balks before Keith even speaks.

“A lot,” he says gruffly, moving towards the other side of the tent.

Lance hears the splash of liquid and a muffled thud, but he’s too absorbed in his feet. From the knees down, he’s a blur. There’s no sensation beyond the warmth of sun spilling across his shins, but Lance watches the shiver of too-fast movement, shadows of grass passing over his ankles, pinpricks of blue light bursting into existence for one moment, replaced by the dapple of water in the next.

“Oh,” says Lance. “Hm. Well. Looks like I owe you a lot more than I thought, huh?”

 _Crack_. Something dry snapping. Lance tears his gaze from his strobing toes to look at Keith’s back. There’s no tension in his shoulders, but when he turns around, his gaze is all ice.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he says, impassive voice contradicted by cold eyes. In his hands is a rough clay cup and plate, which he barely holds back from thrusting into Lance’s lap. “Just tell me what in all hells is going on.”

There’s a stool made of wood, twine, and some sort of hide by several small crates. Keith sits on it, resting his elbow on the ankle propped up against his opposite knee. The linen shirt he wears drapes thinly over sun-kissed arms, tucked haphazardly into loose pants the colour of dust. His stained fingers tap a slow beat against bare skin. Somehow, he maintains his patience long enough for Lance to chug the contents of the cup—some sort of thin sweet juice—but exhales loud when Lance picks up the piece of seedy rye on the plate.

“Um,” begins Lance, shooting Keith a winning smile he knows will fall flat, “I got attacked?”

Keith doesn’t blink.

“Some people broke into my apartment,” continues Lance, “and waited till I came in to see the place ransacked.”

Keith makes a sound of insincere curiosity. “Apartment, huh? And where’s that?” He’s still not blinking.

Lance takes a bite of rye; it’s incredibly dry. “Uh. Montréal?”

“Wow. Canada.” Deadpan. “So that’s where you’ve been.”

Silence. Lance chews slowly while his feet buzz through different worlds.

“And then?” prompts Keith.

“I got...chloroformed.”

“What.”

“Chloroformed.”

Keith looks at him in an offensive combination of disgust and disbelief. His sharp eyeteeth and pink gums are bared from how high his lip is curling.

“Gods, I knew you were useless, Lance,” says Keith incredulously, “but this is a new all-time low. Even for you. I’m astounded. Impressed, even.”

“Your face says otherwise,” mumbles Lance.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Keith rises from his seat to snatch the empty cup from the edge of the cot. Even despite his cutting words, Lance can’t help but notice that Keith still refills the cup with juice and passes it back.

“It’s not like I can see into the future,” says Lance, embarrassed. He wets his mouth with the juice and says around another bite of bread, “I can’t imagine a motive.”

The stool creaks under Keith as he sits down again. “Maybe you summoned them, bound them to the earth, and left.” Keith smiles without humour. “Just a thought.”

“That’s an incredibly misleading oversimplification,” mutters Lance, massaging his gut that’s been emotionally suckerpunched twice now.

“Really? It gets the point across.”

“Besides,” says Lance sheepishly, “None of them were djinn.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Remember that time—”

“Don’t!” interrupts Lance, voice going high-pitched. “I was young, okay? It’s a common mistake for rookies!”

“Few rookies _accidentally_ summon an ifrit and—”

“ _Keith,_ please!”

“Nobody’s around to laugh at you but me,” scoffs Keith.

“You’re not laughing,” Lance points out.

“Fancy that.”

Lance groans and flops back down to gaze up at the tent’s peak. “Look, I don’t know what they were looking for, but they didn’t _know_ who I was, otherwise they wouldn’t have drugged me.”

“Unless they were desperate.”

Lance hums his agreement. “But I’m pretty sure they weren’t aware, or at least whoever hired them didn’t say.”

“Where’d you dump them?”

“The Alps.”

“So they’re dead.”

“Maybe.” Lance forces himself back up into a sitting position, rubbing his aching neck with one hand. “How long have I been out?”

“Only a few hours,” says Keith, then he nods towards the half-eaten rye. “Finish that.”

Lance reluctantly takes another bite of the bread, washing it down immediately with juice. Keith watches him, expression carefully blank, his fingers fidgeting with each other his only tell. By the time the bread is done and the cup empty, Lance’s feet seem to have stabilized. He gives them an experimental wiggle. Thankfully, there’s no trace of involuntarily triggered power.

“I’m good, yeah?” Lance says, looking up at Keith for confirmation.

Keith glances over him, one hand extending to brush a purple fingertip down Lance’s shin to the tip of his toes, openly ignoring the shiver this elicits.

“Good enough,” says Keith, and he crooks a finger. A slightly smaller chain forms a loop over his palm, and then collapses in a heavy pile. “You’ll have to wear this.”

Lance eyes the necklace suspiciously. “What for?”

“Until the drug is completely out of your body, you’ll need a dampener, just in case.” Keith doesn’t wait for permission to dump the chains around Lance’s neck. “It’s also imbued with anti-Sight magic.”

“So they can’t see where I am,” says Lance, touching the chain that falls heavily against his collarbone.

“For now.” Keith gestures and the rest of the bindings slide out of sight.

He whisks out of the tent without another word, leaving Lance to test his footing before following after. The canyon air is less stuffy than the tent’s, smelling of sunbaked stone and something green, though Lance sees no vegetation. The walls of the canyon are narrow and striped dusty orange, like unpolished tiger’s eye. Keith is striding ahead, hands stuffed resolutely in his pockets. Lance, for lack of anything better to do, follows after him to where the tight walls open up.

There’s the temple Lance first fazed in front of. Its pillars look half-formed, or worn away, or both, framing a wide entrance open to whatever elements can beat the protection of the canyon. Some words in a language Lance recognizes but can’t read form borders on every available surface not rubbed raw by wind and dust.

Keith has vanished inside, but before Lance can follow, he’s back. A scarf is tied around his hair, keeping it from his face. He shoots Lance a look, says nothing. Weighing down his hands is a bucket of water—he gives this to Lance before returning to the temple.

It isn’t until they’ve shipped several buckets of water from the temple to the tent that Keith finally asks, “I came here on purpose. For a reason. How did you manage to find me?”

“I don’t know,” says Lance, though he thinks it has something to do with terror and trust. “You’re the one with the wards. Ask yourself.”

Keith looks troubled at that, but says no more. Lance looks up at the stone façade of the temple once more. He’s thinking about what the interior must look like when he’s distracted by a buzzing kind of hum. Lance frowns and tilts his head. It’s a familiar sound, but it seems out of place. It takes a flicker of a shadow on the canyon wall for Lance to pinpoint the location of the noise: a small drone with four helicopter-like propellers.

“Um,” says Lance. “Do you often get air traffic here?”

“No.” Keith’s voice draws Lance’s gaze down to him. The djinni’s face is pinched—he’s nervous. That’s never a good sign. “I have wards up.”

“So, a common drone bypassed your wards.”

“Impossible.”

Lance nods sagely. “Unless?”

“It’s not just a common drone.”

As if to prove Keith’s point, the drone’s power cuts off, and it pitches belly-first to the dusty ground. Instead of shattering, it passes through—or not. Lance can see dents in the rock, in the vague shape of a drone, except in top-view, which suspiciously looks like—

“That’s a damned druid circle,” spits Keith, spinning on his heel. “You have a tag on you.”

“Oh,” says Lance faintly.

Keith is already running back to the tent, but Lance remains watching as masked people in black hoodies come popping up from the circle as if the very earth is thrusting them out. He sees a pig mask, Mickey Mouse, Freddy Krueger—oh.

 _Shit_ , thinks Lance, and says, “Weren’t you supposed to die in the mountains?”

Piggy is hefting a rifle. They level it at Lance, whose hand immediately goes to his belt loops. There’s nothing there. Right. He’d left his inks at home. He tries to open a transdimensional door, but the feeling isn’t coming to him. It’s as though there’s a wet towel over his head, muting the sound and light that is his power.

More creeps come popping out of the druid circle, shaking dust from their shoulders. Krueger and Mickey are striding forward from either side, shoulders hunched in preparation. At their center, Piggy presses the stock of the rifle against their shoulder.

 _I hope your bone breaks,_ thinks Lance cheerfully as Piggy squeezes the trigger.

 _Crack_. Lance feels the ghost of impact in his chest, but the hypodermic dart is frozen a foot away.

“Ow,” says Lance anyway.

Suddenly Keith is beside him, and with one sharp gesture the dart flips around to punch through Piggy’s mask. The person behind it howls and falls backwards. Someone else goes to scoop up the rifle without pause.

“Lance, the chain,” says Keith.

Lance blinks, then scrambles to lift the heavy necklace from around his neck. As soon as the weight drops to the canyon floor, he feels the prickle of power in his veins, rushing through capillaries like phantom blood. He pulls it to where he wants it. In front of them, Krueger and Mickey have been stopped by an invisible wall. They try to step against it, but it’s like a powerful repelling force is pushing them back. The new sniper stands above the last, rifle at the ready.

“Lance—” begins Keith, his voice edged in warning.

“Got it,” interrupts Lance as pins and needles cover his body in a static cloak. “We’re outta here.”

He doesn’t fully register Keith’s alarmed expression when he hooks an arm around his waist and draws him in close. Lance automatically holds his breath as the sensation of centripetal force envelopes him. Then they’re falling over, the sky becomes the ground, the canyon becomes clouds, and from dust stretches laminate floors, rock traded for drywall, furniture sprouting from nothing.

In a split second, they’re standing in an apartment in Seoul. As soon as the ground settles beneath his feet, Keith is thrusting himself free of Lance and dry-heaving on his knees over a glass coffee table. Lance exhales loud, but he doesn’t drop. The glass is coated in a fine layer of dust—he hasn’t been here in awhile. A few articles of abandoned clothes are flung over the furniture, a t-shirt hanging from a shelf covered in second-hand grimoires and several struggling cacti. A hanging plant Lance had put in one corner to lend the space a more organic feel has gone wild, curling over the shelf and the desk, reaching into the kitchen where its tendrils have planted new roots in the sink.

Keith is back on his feet after a moment of Lance rifling noisily through cabinets. Soup cans and crackers are pushed aside impatiently. There’s not much else. Anything important he makes sure to bring with him on each long-term move. He finds what he’s looking for curled up in a vine making a lazy journey towards the trash.

“Thanks,” says Lance as he snatches the jar from the plant’s mischievous grasp. He turns to Keith standing in the living room, gazing around at everything with an unreadable expression. “Keith.” The djinni looks at him. “I need your help.”

“I can’t—my purge wards aren’t meant for delicate work,” says Keith with a frown.

“I know,” says Lance, “which is why I developed a curse.” _Based on your ward magic_ is left unsaid. He holds up the jar and shakes it, a glowing blue sphere bobbing gently inside. “It’s scripted to attach itself to anything that isn’t mine and...reject it.”

Keith opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Lance can hear the word unsaid— _scripted?—_ bitterly questioning inflection and all. Before Keith, Lance had been struggling learning the basics of spellcasting. Passing through dimensions was in his blood, but turning the pins and needles sensation outwards, for other uses, was never his forté—until his successful summoning of Keith.

He’d chosen the djinni specifically for his ability to write magic. Even though it’s just a flick and a crook of his finger, when Lance looked closer and started asking questions to a rapidly thawing Keith, he learned fast how to mix ink with his power. It was only ever an off-brand version of Keith’s ability, but it _worked_.

Which is why it’s such a kick in the teeth to admit even without Keith by his side, Lance has continued working magic the way the djinni taught him.

A muscle in Keith’s jaw jumps as he grits his teeth. Then he asks, “What do you need me for, then?”

Lance looks down at the jar and the friendly-looking wisp. “I’m going to swallow this thing, and you’re going to make sure I don’t throw it back up.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Also I don’t want to break anything, so. Pin me down, please.”

Keith’s face says it all: _this isn’t a funny joke, Lance_. He sure wishes it was. Without bothering to brush the couch free of dust, Lance lies down, his feet planted flat against one armrest and the crown of his head pressing on the other. He really hopes the frame doesn’t break; this couch wasn’t cheap.

Hesitantly, the djinni kneels beside him, hands raising to hover in the air. Lance can’t waste anymore time explaining exactly what he needs. Keith will figure it out.

Opening the jar, Lance brings it up to his lips and inhales. The flow of air drags the glow into his mouth. He swallows. The reaction is instantaneous. It isn’t pin and needles—it’s sparks in his stomach, tongues of flame in his throat. His body shudders and tries to kick it out, but Lance already grabbed Keith’s uncertain hands to clamp them over his mouth and nose. When the first convulsion rolls up Lance’s spine, Keith is forced to press down to stop the curse from being ejected.

Lance’s body burns from the inside. His eyes water, veins throbbing in his temples. Pleather groans under his grip. The couch frame creaks. Keith frees his nose to let him breath, but the stagnant apartment air fans the flames. Keith’s hand remains over Lance’s mouth to muffle his screams.

He feels when the curse locates the tag, because suddenly all the pain is focusing in on a singular spot—his lungs. _Like burning off a wart_ , thinks Lance feverishly. Then, abruptly, Keith’s hands are leaving him and it’s only Lance’s grip on the couch that stops him from seizing and thrashing in alteration.

“Kei-Keith,” he bites out, but the djinni is standing.

“Stay down,” says Keith, as if Lance has the ability to do otherwise.

Lance tries to tell him to wait, but the scorching of his lungs is reaching its climax. There’s no room for any other thought than the pain. It’s a high pitched screaming in his ears, a deep throbbing bass, the screech of metal on metal. It’s bile on his tongue and vinegar in his eyes.

Until, quite suddenly, it’s gone.

Lance releases the cushions and sits up. Sweat runs a cool finger down his spine. He’s rising to his feet, trying not to feel too put off by the fact one of the arm rests is crooked, when Keith returns to the living room—by being thrown from the entryway.

He hits the wall between two windows and slides to the ground. Blood, redder and brighter than any human’s, dribbles thickly from his nose. Lance looks from him to the beast stepping into view: tall and vaguely humanoid, more flame and heat than a tangible existence—an ifrit.

“Fuck,” whispers Lance. He hates ifrits even on good days when he isn’t burnt out.

The ifrit levels its gaze on Lance, tilts its head in something like recognition. Lance feels a thrill of fear lend him strength. He launches himself towards Keith, whose head lolls back as he tries to refocus. The ifrit moves in a whirl of sparks. Lance’s hand closes around Keith’s wrist.

He nearly makes it, but the ifrit isn’t some low level demon to be put off by the chaos of dimensional jumping. The fabric of space isn’t much of a barrier as a searing claw wraps solidly around Lance’s bicep.

Let it be known that pain doesn’t make jumping any easier. Lance bites back a scream as laminate becomes grass, then concrete, like the swift yank of a rug beneath his feet. He’s got Keith tucked in the protective curl of one arm, the other no closer to being free from the demon’s grasp even as Lance pulls and pulls.

They appear in the middle of a Bangkok road, in a universe where all the buildings wear façades of grass. Nobody has time to lay on their horns; a bus is bearing down on the trio. Lance sees the oblivious gaze of the driver, feels the pain of a hot knife through his skin, and the ifrit is meeting the front of the bus. The demon bursts into startled flames at the impact, its grip sliding free from Lance’s flesh as its launched into another car. Then there’s mass panic as vehicles burn.

Lance falls together with Keith, his arms a weak protective circle as they pass through a flipbook of places until they’re wreathed in cedar scent. At some point, Keith regained his senses. He’s sturdy in Lance’s arms.

 _That’s good_ , Lance thinks with relief.

The world is still spinning around him, but at least this time he isn’t falling through dimensions at random. They’re in a cabin, lit warmly by a setting sun. Lance’s legs buckle, and there are strong hands under his arms, guiding him to a worn leather couch that creaks under his weight. Keith steps away from him, the concerned flash of his eyes gone unnoticed by Lance as he struggles to manually right his balance.

From the air, Keith begins to trace shapes. They form an invisible wall of sorts, gathering power from his command and the inky magic at his fingertips. Lance watches him do so. He always was enamored by it—the magic, and Keith especially.

“They know who you are,” says Keith needlessly.

Lance says nothing.

“You need to stay in another dimension for a while,” the djinni continues, “until they give up, or find what they want somewhere else.”

The core of Lance’s power lies in his birthplace—the earth _gave_ it to him. Leaving for extended periods weakens him, and Keith knows. Despite this, Lance understands the necessity, but he doesn’t want to. He won’t.

“I brought them to your doorstep,” says Lance weakly. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t miss how Keith stiffens. There’s no response, and then Lance is falling into an exhausted slumber, the seam of leather pressing into his cheek. He sleeps fitfully, feeling the panic of being chased within nonsensical dreams. Something brushes against his hair, and he’s terrified that it’s the ifrit, back to crisp the rest of him, but then it becomes a sharp pinch on his neck and he’s jolting awake.

“Get up,” says Keith sharply.

Lance does so, though it’s difficult, like slugging through thick mud. The feeling clings to him; it’s in his bones and his muscles and his skin. Lance belatedly realizes there’s something missing to the sensation when he looks down at his arm and discovers the weight of a warded scarf around his burn.

“You—” begins Lance, but cuts himself off wisely. Keith doesn’t acknowledge the aborted comment. He’s looking out the window, towards the mountain lake that forms the front yard of Lance’s favourite hidden cabin.

Lance manages to rise and lurches towards the cabinetry in the adjoining kitchen. Thankfully, his weakness seems to be more attributed to lack of use than exhaustion now, and the more he moves, the more strength he feels returning to him. After setting up an array of bottles and tins, Lance gets to work on his arm. The moment the scarf is off, the burning pain returns full force, and Lance has to grit his teeth. He mixes two poultices to numb the pain and heal the skin, then reaches for a tin of half-congealed ink. His hand pauses there as his eyes flick up to check where Keith’s gaze rests.

But the djinni is watching him, shoulders angled away but his eyes piercing. He’s wiped the red from his nose. Lance feels immediately uncomfortable, yet there’s nothing left to do except finish with his own inky wards around the ifrit’s handprint. Keith says nothing. He doesn’t need to. Lance’s mind provides it all.

He takes his time cleaning the countertop. When he’s done, Keith is looking back out the window, massaging his wrists. Lance remembers being the one to do that for him, to work the magic ink back into his fingertips like blood, letting the intimacy of their touch calm Keith’s mind. It’s particularly aggravating because Lance knows the reason he can’t do it now, like he wants to, is his own fault.

“This place is new,” Keith says without looking at Lance.

“Yeah.” It’s nearly a year old. “A little.”

“Lake Louise, right? You always said you wanted a cabin in the Rockies.”

Lance swallows, moves towards him with the scarf washed and damp in his hand. “Yeah.”

“I like it.”

Lance’s chest burns—no magic, no demons, just pain. He opens his mouth to say something, but no words come, and enough seconds tick by that Keith turns his head around to look the distance—scarcely a meter—from himself to Lance.

“Are you going to banish me, now?”

That hurts even worse, because Lance knows exactly why Keith would ask it. The wards are up, the burn is taken care of, what more might Lance need from a djinni like Keith?

The scarf is still heavy with Keith’s magic. Lance offers it to him; Keith’s fingers wrap around the end but doesn’t pull it away.

“Is that it?” he says quietly.

“You have no contract with me.”

Lance realizes his mistake too late—if Keith was simmering before, now he’s been sparked.

“No,” he says, “but not for lack of trying.”

“I bound you, as you wanted,” begins Lance, wanting to kick himself, wishing he could reverse time even just a few seconds and shut himself up, but—

“I didn’t just want to be bonded to the earth,” snaps Keith. “I wanted to be bonded to _you.”_

“I know,” croaks Lance. “That’s why I left.”

Keith jerks his hand and the scarf away, eyes flashing. “Why in all hells would you do that? If you didn’t want me, then you should have said so, and let me go! Instead you gave me shackles—”

“That wasn’t my intention—”

“Yet that’s what happened!” snarls Keith. Behind him, the sun dips behind the mountain and everything is tinged blue. “You made me believe I was loved, and could love in return, and tied me to this dimension. For what purpose would you do that? What did you gain? Bragging rights? As soon as you left, did you go to the nearest guild to talk about how you duped a djinni with nothing but false promises? That truly is an incredible feat.”

“I won’t deny I was selfish,” says Lance quietly.

“Don’t say it like it’s in the past,” spits Keith.

Lance swallows hard, heart pumping blood and dread to limbs too cold. “I-I am selfish, but I never lied to you.”

Lance sees the moment Keith’s control splinters. It’s in the waves of heat rolling off shaking shoulders, and the purple ink dripping from his fingertips. Lance hears it in Keith’s voice, rough and broken.

“We were supposed to be _together!”_ he says, the syllables breaking like glass. “I would be by your side forever—or as long as you wanted me to be! You could have just—just said you were scared! I thought—I thought we—together, we would be strong, and safe—”

The next words end in a choked sound from Keith’s throat. He tries to inhale, the breath rattling audibly. Lance feels pathetic, but he takes advantage of the gap.

“You would have been fine bound like a servant,” says Lance, unable to control the tremor in his voice. “A familiar. Another djinni shackled to a sorcerer. That isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want our contract to be permanent. You were never meant to be like that.”

“Yet you—” rasps Keith, hoarse by his rage.

“I bound you to the earth instead,” admits Lance, “because then nobody else could summon you. It was as close to freedom for a djinni to remain as I could figure, but that meant trapping you to one plane. I didn’t think about the consequences, and I didn’t think about telling you what I’d done.”

“But why,” croaks Keith, “did you _leave?”_

“I was selfish and naïve,” says Lance, “and when I realized that, I was horrified, and guilty, and I couldn’t pretend I was happy. I left, but I couldn’t tell you because I was scared of how you might look at me, and then I kept being scared, until it got easier and easier to convince myself how terrible an idea it would be if I came back.”

Keith stares at him, unblinking, eyes reddening and his breath slowing between barely parted teeth. The first tear to roll doesn’t surprise Lance, but he takes it like a blow to his heart nonetheless. The veritable downpour that follows, however, is a shock. Lance has very seldom witnessed Keith lose it, and it’s almost always been in a rage, his power quivering about him like a cloak and dagger all in one. This shuddering, hiccuping, sobbing mess in front of Lance now is no Keith that he’s ever seen before.

“I— _hate—_ you,” gasps Keith.

 _Me too,_ thinks Lance, _I hate myself too_ . Yet he doesn’t say it outloud. He doesn’t like the taste of the admission on his tongue, like a plea to forgive him, because he _knows_ he’s terrible, he’s _aware_ of his flaws. That doesn’t change them.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Lance instead. “I’m so sorry, Keith. Whatever it is you want now, name it, and I’ll grant it.”

“You know what I want, you bastard.”

“I’ll unbind you from this earth,” says Lance. “It’ll take a lot of power, but I can do it.”

“So I can vanish, and you can erase your greatest mistake?” Keith barks a wet laugh. “Screw you!”

“I-I’ll do whatever you want. I owe you that.”

“I don’t want payment!” snarls Keith. “I’ve only ever wanted _you_.”

His jaw snaps shut audibly. Lance’s mouth is dry. Before he can say anything, Keith is storming out of the cabin, into the blue shadows of the forest at dusk. The room is darker now, without Keith burning bright at the forefront of it. As with all of Lance’s preferred nooks, this one too has bookshelves stuffed full. There’s a fine layer of dust on everything. There always is. He finds it impossible to linger in one spot, especially when he starts finding things that remind him of his mistakes. A glass hippo figurine he’d been looking for sits on the middle shelf, fuzz smudged free over its snout from where someone touched it.

Lance steps out of the cabin. Pine needles crunch softly under his feet as he takes the unmaintained path down to the lake. The turquoise water laps lazily at fine pebbles and Keith’s feet. Lance hesitates in mind only; his body carries him forward to crouch beside the djinni as he scrubs his face with the scarf.

“You’ve missed a little blood,” says Lance, calm despite the crack of his voice. “Let me?”

Because Keith is a masochist, he holds out the limp scarf. He could have left Lance to drop out of existence, but he didn’t. He could have let the masked people tranq him, but he didn’t. He could have left him as the ifrit loomed over his thrashing body, but he didn’t. Lance takes the scarf and dips it in the cold water, drawing Keith’s face to him with a finger under his chin.

“I can’t make you happy,” murmurs Lance as he dabs away drying flecks of red at the corner of the djinni’s mouth.

Keith doesn’t look away. “You can’t, or you won’t?”

“I—”

“Is this about you punishing yourself?”

Lance’s mouth clamps shut. He brushes Keith’s nose clean, using the motion to hide the way his fingers tremble.

Keith’s eyes flash, from tears and stale anger. “What do _you_ want?”

 _You_ , Lance wants to say—wants to shout. He wants to take Keith in his arms and breath in the spicy sweet scent of him. He wants to hold, and be held.

Instead, he asks unsteadily, “Am I allowed to want?”

The wavering cloak around Keith is shrinking—Lance doesn’t realize until it’s almost gone. The fight hasn’t vanished from the djinni, but it’s not front and center anymore. This Keith is in control, despite the patchy redness of his face, and the tears dripping salty from his chin. Lance wipes those away too tenderly.

Softly, every word like cashmere, Keith says, “You’ve never needed my permission.”

“After everything I’ve done.” It isn’t a question.

“Lance, what do you want?”

It takes a long moment, but finally Lance manages to whisper, “I want to be happy.” The words don’t take a toll on him like he’d thought. Maybe he even feels lighter. “I want you to be happy,” he continues. “I want—I want us to be happy.”

“Then—” Keith’s voice cracks. He reaches up to close dark fingers around the scarf and Lance’s hand. “Th-then will you let us try?”

“I’ll unbind you.”

Keith’s hand twitches, then drops. Lance catches it before it can brush water. The djinni looks down at the contact.

“And I’ll summon you again,” continues Lance, slightly stronger, because he can be, because he must. “You’ll decide what to do from there, and I’ll help you do it. It will be your choice, this time, not my selfish whim.”

Violet fingers turn in Lance’s, gently threading them together.

“Then I choose this,” says Keith. “I don’t care about the binding. This place isn’t so bad—and if we ever want to switch dimensions, we can talk then. Right?” His eyes, red-rimmed and burning, engulf Lance. “I’ll always be around to hear you out.”

“Yeah.” Lance brings up his free hand to touch the dampness of Keith’s face. He can’t believe he’s allowed this. “As it comes, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Keith?”

The djinni is nuzzling into the palm of Lance’s hand. “Hm?”

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t think the words are quite strong enough to express his gratitude, but nevertheless Keith smiles, and leans in close until their foreheads and the tips of their noses touch. Lance breathes in cinnamon sugar and pepper.

The scarf is cold and damp in his hand, Keith’s fingers are warm and dry. There are people chasing him, and he doesn’t know why, but it doesn’t matter just then. Keith is drawing him in closer, and Lance forgets to regret.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://bitterbeetle.tumblr.com) but the chances of seeing voltron on it are p slim
> 
> also let's pretend for awhile that I'm not going to turn this into something Big.


End file.
